Machines should work. Humans should THINK.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kRg_1j-iWFU
Posted on 11/12/2013 3:13:48 AM PST by Cincinatus' Wife
“Every day is now an Amazon delivery day.” So says Dave Clark, Amazon’s vice president of worldwide operations and customer service, announcing a deal with the United States Postal Service that will allow the delivery of Amazon purchases on Sunday.
Clark is guilty of some exaggeration. To qualify, you must be a member of Amazon’s $79-a-year Amazon Prime program. And when the service begins on Nov. 17, it will only be available in New York and Los Angeles, though there are plans to gradually expand to other cities. But the gist is clear: Amazon’s message to everyone who has lived through the hell of waiting until Monday for delivery of a purchase is straightforward: Your nightmare is over.
Maybe so, but my nightmare is just beginning. Some may cheer the news that Amazon’s commitment to ultimate consumer fulfillment will not be denied by any so-called “day of rest.” But the spectacle of Amazon Sunday also manages to capture, in a tidy package delivered right to everyone’s doorstep, both the ongoing collapse of government and the subservience of everything in our society to the unnecessary satiation of consumer desires. Sound the heretic alarm! Guess what? We don’t need Sunday deliveries. We really don’t. But we do need a functional government.
Wasn’t it just the other day we were hearing that the USPS would cease deliveries on Saturday? (Congress, for the moment, has squashed this idea.) Now here’s Amazon to the rescue! Terms of the deal haven’t been released, but you’d have to guess that Jeff Bezos is paying a tidy sum to get mail carriers out and about on Sundays. The lesson offered is pathetic. The U.S. government can no longer adequately fund the postal service. But Amazon can!
I suppose it’s not quite accurate to lambaste the provision of a new delivery option as yet another example of the relentless ongoing privatization of public services. But it is still unsettling. Amazon’s obvious goal is to get more Amazon Prime signups. What Sunday deliveries by the USPS really mean is that a government service is being co-opted as part an Amazon marketing campaign. I don’t think this is what Ben Franklin had in mind.
But we get packages on Sunday, so it’s all good, right? Because what the consumer wants is best, right? Because success in the current era of capitalism is fundamentally predicated on consumer bliss, right?
Well, what about the workers? The Wall Street Journal reports that the USPS won’t have to hire any new workers to provide Sunday deliveries.
"…[O]fficials have been working for more than a year on a “flexible” workforce that could be asked to clock in on Sundays. “We’re ready for Sunday in the current markets,” the spokeswoman said. “If this were to expand, we would look at staffing levels and adjust accordingly."
OK. So postal workers now don’t get Sundays off so that we can get new backpacks for our kids in time for Monday morning school. Fair trade!
In Brad Stone’s recent book on Amazon, he makes it abundantly clear that, by and large, working for Amazon sucks. Why not spread that model throughout the entire economy? In the future, there will be two economic classes. The people accepting their Sunday morning Amazon deliveries, and everybody else, slaving to make sure that the doodads get there on time.
I will almost certainly take advantage of this new service. As a red-blooded American I am all about instant wish fulfillment. And in the not-so-distant future, when I am 3-D printing my online purchases after instantaneous digital download, this whole notion of waiting even for a Sunday delivery will no doubt seem quaint.
But we’re losing something here. There are precious few moments in our lives right now when we are allowed to rest, when we can bask in the knowledge that the clock is off. Our smartphone-enabled, super-connected lifestyle has been chipping steadily away at the notion that there is any solid demarcation between work and play, or any refuge from digitally delivered pressure.
Once upon a time, Sunday was a space in which that frenetic assault backed off.
No longer. Just imagine. You could be lying in bed, listening to this and get interrupted by a knock on the door from your U.S. Postal Service Amazon sub-contractor.
“Watch out, the world’s behind you.” Indeed.
What a dilemma.
I think I’m gonna cry < /s>
So, Amazon is making the USPS profitable, and this clown has a problem with that?
Amazon had a nice programmable one for about $40, including MA tax (new as of November) and zero shipping (due to Prime membership).
But I nevertheless shopped around, Amazon having recently caved to the MA DOR over the sales tax thing. Best I could do (no sales tax, but shipping extra) was only a few pennies less than Amazon Prime, so I gave the sale to Bezos, having learned that Prime shipping delivers as expected.
Just one report from the field. YMMV.
Cool — delivery on Sunday! Me likes!
It’s a good thing. I’d think most people who ordered an item the week before would much rather have it delivered on Sunday, when they’re home, than having it sit in a warehouse over the weekend.
Machines should work. Humans should THINK.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kRg_1j-iWFU
He’s obviously envious that the private sector can innovate, execute and serve its customers......
>>> So, Amazon is making the USPS profitable, and this clown has a problem with that?
NO.
This clown is crying because USPS (and thus ‘gubmint’ as extension) needs a private sector bailout.
And if the adventure actually makes USPS ‘profitable’ (or as long as self-sustaining),
THEN this clown’s head is really going to explode.
Pretty funny Amazon carries Brad Stone’s book referenced in the article as: “In Brad Stone’s recent book on Amazon, he makes it abundantly clear that, by and large, working for Amazon sucks.”
So even though he wrote a book that supposedly slams Amazon or his experience working there, Amazon is making money off his sales! *laughing*
Long story, short: for 15 or 16 years, my life's been tied to Amazon in a sort of, humorous and ironic faux death-match....I know more about them than Stone does, that's for certain.
And it's also for certain that he's full of sh!t.
I was in a position to know about Bezos' decision to move from selling books to selling "everything on line" before it was publicly announced.
In fact - in what will probably amount to the most epic "miss" of my life - I chuckled a little and scoffed at the idea.
Now, Amazon's moved into the neighborhood I've lived in since 91, and taken over everything. My building's home to scores of Amazon programmers and engineers. I'm an IT Director who started in programming so, talking shop with these guy's has been pretty sweet.
I haven't heard any of them say so much as one thing negative about their jobs: they resprect Bezos and "by and large" enjoy where they work and what they do.
Microsoft employees, on the other hand...
I agree with that part of it. There are a few people (some in this thread) who buy out of need. Others buy out of desire or envy or boredom. I can't proclaim innocence since I am typing this post on my 2012 macbook air instead of some old beater laptop. I also have Amazon prime.
But the strength of our economy will not come from consumption but from savings. Those buying parts for repair or long lasting needed items are not part of my critique. But Sunday delivery in big cities is probably going to be a new and unnecessary iphone.
“I don’t think this is what Ben Franklin had in mind.”
Well I think it’s exactly what he had in mind.
Could this Brezos’ foot in the door — eventually negotiate and redo the USPS workers’ pension mess, sell off extra inventory, downsize workforce and then morph into another “private” competitor of FedEx?
Bump!
Imagine that ! The privatization of the USPS ? Better buy your Amazon stock now !!
For every one of those programmers there are ten people moving merchandise in a warehouse that are given impossible standards of performance, managed by managers that think they are lords of the realm and making sure that full time regular employees are filtered out of the system when they hit the top tier of wages.
This really is the way the mind of the liberal rolls.
“a functional government”
There is no incentive for “functionality” in government.
The incentive is for empire building and increased budgets.
This is why the “government” should be limited to it’s Constitutionally authorized functions.
>>You could be lying in bed, listening to this and get interrupted by a knock on the door from your U.S. Postal Service Amazon sub-contractor. <<
I order a lot from Amazon, and never once has the package been delivered with a knock at the door, never once has it been an interruption.
If the package is small enough, the mail carrier puts it in the mail box, if not, they leave it on the front porch.
So, no, I don’t share this hyperventilating twits assessment of the situation.
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